By Michael Moore, PWTorch Collectibles specialist

The Topps Company, Inc. and Leaf Trading Cards have not responded to multiple attempts seeking comment about the future of Hulk Hogan in those companies’s trading card products. Both companies recently released products that prominently feature Hogan, and at least Topps is in the middle of a year-long insert set that celebrates Hogan’s career.

Topps released its 2015 Allen & Ginter baseball product shortly before the news broke of Hogan’s racist remarks last week. Allen & Ginter has been one of Topps’s most popular products over the last 10 years. Its popularity is driven by cards of top baseball stars, athletes from other sports and pop culture celebrities. Past sets have included wrestlers like Hogan, Shawn Michaels, and the Iron Sheik.

Hogan was a big part of Topps’s marketing for 2015 Allen & Ginter in the months leading up to the product’s July release. Hogan is included in the 10th Anniversary Autographs subset as Hogan, and the Framed Mini Autographs subset as Thunderlips, his character from Rocky III. Sylvester Stallone and Dolph Lundgren also appear in the set as their Rocky characters.




Topps has released two WWE trading cards products so far in 2015, with plans for three more. A 50-card Hulk Hogan Tribute insert series was scheduled to be spread across all five products. The first 20 cards were released in 2015 Topps WWE and 2015 Topps WWE Chrome (10 in each), and 10 more were scheduled to be included in 2015 Topps Road to WrestleMania, which is scheduled to be released in mid-August.

Topps certainly can’t be faulted for including Hogan’s cards in Allen & Ginter or even the upcoming Road to WrestleMania release. Those products were probably packaged months ago and there was little Topps could do to remove Hogan’s cards, even if they wanted to. How Topps handles Hogan’s cards in their Heritage and Undisputed sets, which will be released closer to the end of the year, remains to be seen.

Leaf included Hogan in its 2014 Leaf Originals Wrestling product (released in January) and 2015 Leaf Wrestling Signed 8x10 Photograph Edition (released in early July). Leaf released its 2015 Pop Century set earlier this week, which also features multiple Hogan cards.

Pop Century is a product that features signatures of athletes, actors, musicians, reality TV stars and all sorts of other pop culture celebrities. The 2015 Pop Century product includes autographs from wrestling and MMA personalities like Hogan, Ric Flair, Bruno Sammartino, Fifi the Maid, Ken Shamrock and Georges St. Pierre.




Like Topps, it’s hard to blame Leaf for keeping Hogan in a product that was packed out months ago. But how Leaf handles the situation going forward will be interesting. Leaf, a much smaller company than Topps, has never shied away from controversy. The company promoted a Chris Benoit autograph in its 2015 8x10 product, and adult movie star Tera Patrick is included in 2015 Pop Century. In 2014, Jenna Jameson and 16-year-old Disney starlet Bella Thorne were included in the same Pop Century set.

Mattel, a much larger company than Topps and especially Leaf, responded swiftly by ceasing production on future Hogan action figures. In a statement last week, Mattel tweeted to the Torch: “We are committed to embracing people from all cultures & backgrounds. At this time, we will halt production on Hogan product (SIC).”

Topps and Leaf haven’t been as forthcoming with their plans for future Hogan products.

PWTorch Collectibles specialist Michael Moore can be reached at michaelmoorewriter@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter @MMooreWriter.

We suggest these recent related articles...

10/5 WWE Raw Hits & Misses: Natalya vs. Paige, Owens vs. Cara, Stephanie McMahon, Sasha Banks, Xavier Woods

COLLECTIBLES COLUMN: The History of Foam Hands in Pro Wrestling

9/28 WWE Raw Hits & Misses: Kane's Split Personality, Divas Revolution, Heyman & Big Show, Reigns vs. Wyatt